NAME: SARANG KAMBLE.

STANDARD: XII
ROLL NO.:
SUBJECT: BIOLOGY.
NAME OF THE SCHOOL:
PETROCHEMICALS VIDYALAYA,
NAGOTHANE.
[‘EFFECTS
OF SOUND
ON PLANTS’]
 CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the project compiled in this file has
been performed by Master Sarang Kamble studying in
XII standard, Roll No. of Petrochemicals Vidyalaya
School during the academic year 2012-2013.

Signature of Internal Examiner Signature of External Examiner

Signature of Principal School Stamp

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I place my sincere thanks to my Biology teacher Mrs.

for assigning me this project. I thank our Principal Sir Mr.
and Vice-Principal Madam for giving me this opportunity.
I express my gratitude towards my parents and friends
for supporting me in doing this project. I further
acknowledge our laboratory assistant for his valuable
guidance in completing this project.
 PREFACE

The project complied under this file is on the topic ‘Effects

of Sound on Plants’. It briefly discusses about what is
sound, how it propagates, its effects on animals and
plants. The project includes an experiment to study
effects of different types of music on plants.
 CONTENTS

Introduction.

What is sound?

Propagation of sound.

Effects of sound on living organisms.

Effects of music on plant growth.

Experiment.

Bibliography.
“EFFECT OF SOUND ON PLANTS”

Introduction:

It had been hypothesized that sound increases growth in plants, and

today some companies even use a growth system that incorporates
sound to try to increase growth. Thus, sound could effectively increase
any plant that you could grow. In these cases, sound was desired and
potentially beneficial.

Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose, in India, initiated an elaborate research on

plants. He was probably the first scientist of the modern age who had
inkling that the sound of music does wonders for plant growth. He
performed some experiments which show how music affects plant
growth. Scientists from all over the world have researched on the
question "how does music affect plants".

Living systems indeed show sensitivity to specific radiant energies – be

it acoustical, magnetic or electro-magnetic. As the impact of music
could be easily gauged on emotions and thereby on mind, it can be
used as a tool to control the physiological, psychological and even social
activities of the patients.
In other cases, the unwanted effects of sound on plants, or the
environment, are referred to as noise pollution.
The fundamentals of this experiment require a basic knowledge of both
sound and plants.

What is Sound?
Sound is a mechanical wave or a sequence of waves that create
disturbance in the medium as they cause back and forth vibration of
the particles of the medium through which the sound waves are
moving. A sound wave is an  oscillation of pressure transmitted through
a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of
hearing. During propagation, waves can be reflected, refracted,
or attenuated by the medium.

If a sound wave is moving from left to right through air, then particles
of air will be displaced both rightward and leftward as the energy of the
sound wave passes through it. The motion of the particles is parallel
(and anti-parallel) to the direction of the energy transport. This is what
characterizes sound waves in air as longitudinal waves. A vibrating
tuning fork is capable of creating such a longitudinal wave.

Propagation of sound:
The behavior of sound propagation is generally affected by three
things:
  A relationship between density and pressure: - This relationship,
affected by temperature, determines the speed of sound within
the medium.
 The propagation is also affected by the motion of the medium
itself. For example, sound moving through wind. Independent of
the motion of sound through the medium, if the medium is
moving, the sound is further transported.
 The viscosity of the medium also affects the motion of sound
waves. It determines the rate at which sound is attenuated.

What we can hear and normally associate with the word “sound” is our
perception of these waves through our ears. Sound is characterized by
many factors, the most important of which are wavelength, time
period, amplitude, speed, and frequency.

Wavelength :
Sound travels in the form of a varying wave, interpreted by humans as a
single, solid sound. Wavelength is graphed as the distance between two
peaks. The wavelength of a wave is merely the distance that a
disturbance travels along the medium in one complete wave cycle.
Since a wave repeats its pattern once every wave cycle, the wavelength
is sometimes referred to as the length of the repeating patterns - the
length of one complete wave.

Time Period :
Time Period is generally defined as the amount of time something takes
to complete one cycle. In sound it is essentially the same thing as
wavelength, except wavelength is expressed as a distance, whereas
period is a time. The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating
event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency.

Amplitude :
Amplitude is the maximum disturbance, a wave has from neutrality. It is
graphed as the height of a peak. Amplitude is the magnitude of change
in the oscillating variable with each oscillation within an oscillating
system.

Speed :
Speed of sound describes the speed at which sound waves move
through matter. The speed of sound is 34 meters/second, about 750
mph, which is relatively low compared to other waves, such as light.

Frequency :
Frequency is similar to wavelength, the standard use of period, and
speed. It is essentially the amount of times a wave occurs in an area
over a given amount of time. It is equal to the speed divided by the
wavelength. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.

Therefore, speed and wavelength both go into forming the frequency.

The frequency is a function of the two.

Sound Pressure :
Sound pressure or acoustic pressure is the local pressure deviation from
the ambient (average, or equilibrium) atmospheric pressure caused by
a sound wave.

Effect of Sound on Living Organisms:

On Animals:
The perception of sound in any organism is limited to a certain range of
frequencies. For humans, hearing is normally limited to frequencies
between about 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz (20 kHz), although these limits are
not definite. The upper limit generally decreases with age.
Other species have a different range of hearing. For example, dogs can
perceive vibrations higher than 20 kHz, but are deaf to anything below
40 Hz. As a signal perceived by one of the major senses, sound is used
by many species for detecting danger, navigation, predation,
and communication. Earth's atmosphere, water, and virtually
any physical phenomenon, such as fire, rain, wind, surf, or earthquake,
produces (and is characterized by) its unique sounds. Many species,
such as frogs, birds, marine and terrestrial mammals, have also
developed special organs to produce sound. In some species, these
produce song and speech. Furthermore, humans have developed
culture and technology (such as music, telephone and radio) that allows
them to generate record, transmit, and broadcast sound. The scientific
study of human sound perception is known as psychoacoustics.

Bad effects of Noise:

Facing an ever-increasing din of background noise from traffic and
other human activities, many animals are adapting by changing their
behavior or just moving to quieter locales. Also, noise pollution is
altering the landscape of plants and trees, which depend on noise-
affected animals to pollinate them and spread their seeds.

Some plants do worse in noisy areas, a study, especially for trees,

showed that it often takes a tree, decades to grow from seedling into
adult.

With the growth of superhighways, air traffic, construction and other

machine-based activity, the globe has been growing louder and louder
over the last century.

In loud places, studies have found in the last few years, some birds sing
at higher frequencies. Bats can have trouble finding prey. Frogs can
struggle to find mates. And whales seem to be vocalizing with more
volume to communicate with each other.

Effects of music on plant growth:

Plants have been shown to significantly increase their rate of growth
when stimulated by specific sound frequencies. In the 1950's, Indian
botanist T.C. Singh observed that an Asian aquatic plant, which
normally increases at sunrise, could be induced at other times of the
day by activating an electrically driven tuning fork. He then
experimented with recorded South Indian violin music played to a wide
variety of plants, with frequencies of the fundamental tones in the 100
to 600 Hz range; significantly increased growth rates resulted. About
the same time, a Canadian named Eugene Canby began subjecting test
plots of wheat to recordings of violin, and found that yields increased
by 66%. Other tests in Russia, the U.S., and Canada with ultrasonic
frequencies yielded similar increases in the growth rates of other plant
species.

Various researchers then determined that the range of frequencies

around 5000 Hz were especially potent in stimulating plant growth.
During the 1960's, researcher Dorothy Retallack determined that these
frequencies were best administered in the form of classical music.

Plants interact with their outside world through epidermal cells. This is
a group of cells that form an outside barrier to the plant. Gases are
exchanged through gaps in these cells, which contract and expand like
pores. There is also a collection of cells within this barrier that form the
bulk of the leaf. These chloroplasts and perform the main chemical
functions of plants. It is thought by some that plants can perceive
aspects of the outside world. However, this does not happen in a
central nervous system as with humans. It happens on a cellular level.
Every disturbance, whether it is sound, light, gravity or magnetism, is
on a microscopic level a physical disturbance in the natural air. Sound is
in the form of physical waves that have the potential to crash into
objects, such as plants or plant cells, and damage them. The theory is
that as each cell is blasted with waves of sound, light, and so on, it
alters the amount of RNA created. One example of this is a study
conducted by the key lab of biochemical studies for the Ministry of
Education of the People’s Republic of China. This study exposed
chrysanthemum flowers to high levels of sound and measured the DNA
and RNA produced by the cells. There was a significant increase in the
levels of RNA.
Experiment:
  Aim:
To study effect of different types of music on plants.

 Material:

1. Two saplings of Tomato plant.

2. Two small stereo speakers.

Procedure:
1. Take the two plants and label them, one with classical and one with
rock.
2. Place a sample such that it has two stereo speakers on its both sides.
Play music for 2-3 hours continuously per day.

3. Ensure that both plants get same amount of sunlight.

4. Water them daily and after a week, record your results on how each
plant is doing.

 Observations:

After one week of experimenting, the following results were obtained.

The one that was in the best condition was the plant that was exposed to
classical music. The plant that was exposed to rock music was not so
healthy as the previous one.

Conclusion:
Classical music stimulates growth in plants, as the plant subjected to
classical music was found healthier than that subjected to rock music.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
The content of this project was assembled and edited through a
number of sources on the internet. The experiment compiled in
the file and included in the end of the project has been duly
performed and studied.

Some of the web links are as follows:-

~ www.news.discovery .com
~ www.bbc.co.uk/nature
~ www.livemint.com
~ blogs mschien.com/documents/gussutk_exhibition

Some search engines are:-

~ www.google.com
~ www.wikipedia.com
~ www.ask.com